Modern times challenge organizations and their leaders to adapt quickly and well to complex, fast-moving circumstances under trying conditions. Data sources are numerous, distributed, and contradictory. Problems are difficult to detect and diagnose, widely dispersed, and constantly changing. Knowledge sources and expertise are distributed, of varying quality, and difficult to integrate. Moreover, the tools available to address these problems are increasing in complexity, computational intensity, and require specialized hardware, software, and maintenance.
Against this backdrop, large-scale computer networks have developed at a rapid pace, allowing organizations and individuals to interact through web portals, e-mail, instant messaging, and other tools. These tools have had immediate impact in allowing individuals to communicate with one another conveniently and efficiently. This has enabled the traditional means of human-to-human organizational collaboration to be carried out more effectively at a distance.
Due to factors such as the volume and distribution of available information, number of collaboration participants, rapidly changing circumstances and the like, known collaboration methods and systems can be prone to inefficiency. For example, discussions on known computer message boards where users post messages in response to previous messages can be superficial, scattered, and lack engagement. Groups communicating with one another to address a problem can drift off on tangents removed from the task at hand. These and other problems become more prevalent and troublesome as the number of participants, the quantity of communications therebetween and the quantity of information being accessed increase. These problems are at least partially a result of a lack of focus and organization of the communications. Due to a large volume of communications data, for instance, users can have difficulty in seeing the “big picture” of a discussion.